The NY Gypsy Festival celebrates its seventh year with another outstanding performance schedule and a total of nine shows from Sept 9 – 29, 2011. 15 artists from Macedonia, Spain, Turkey, Serbia, Italy, Hungary, UK, US and Canada display the spirit of the Gypsy diaspora, tenacity and vivaciousness at Drom in September.

Those who know pianist and composer Roger Davidson’s work in classical choral music, jazz, Brazilian music, and tango, might be surprised by “On the Road of Life,” a recording of original songs in klezmer style. Klezmer is an instrumental music tradition of the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe. It’s a mostly festive music, originally performed for dancing at weddings and other joyful events. It shouldn’t surprise then that for Davidson -- born in Paris to a family with American, French, and German roots, raised in New York, and curious since childhood about the big world outside – klezmer might suggest both, honoring old bonds but also a world of possibilities. On the Road to Life is not a traditional klezmer music recording. For Frank London, trumpeter, bandleader, and the album’s arranger and producer, “On the Road of Life represents the sound of klezmer distilled through Roger Davidson. “Is this a traditional klezmer album? No,” says London. “You have all the instruments of a traditional klezmer band, and the players know the tradition. And we put ourselves into this music to make it a living thing, not a museum piece. What Roger has created is part of contemporary tradition – which is a lot broader than the old tradition.”

Trumpeter/composer Frank London, a member of the Klezmatics and the Hasidic New Wave, and has performed with a wide range of artists from John Zorn, LaMonte Young to They Might Be Giants and LL Cool J. He is featured on over 100 CDs and his projects include the folk-opera A Night In The Old Marketplace, Frevo Bombastico and The Brotherhood of the Brass. He was music director for David Byrne and Robert Wilson´s The Knee Plays, taught Jewish music in Canada, and produced CDs for Gypsy legend Esma Redzepova, and Algerian pianist Maurice el Medioni.